


If I Told You To Wait

by thegrassisgreener



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A lot of angst at the beginning, And then a lot of awkwardness, Angst, Awkward Sherlock Holmes, Based around that one scene that should've been a love confession, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, John's kind of emotionally constipated, Love Confessions, M/M, Mary Morstan Dies, Mary Morstan Ships It, Mary knows, Oblivious John Watson, Past Mary Morstan/John Watson, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson Being Idiots, Then, also spoilers - Freeform, and when I say kind of, because of course she does, i mean VERY, in case you didn't guess, rewritten scenes, somewhat slow burn, they work it out in the end, v fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27865149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrassisgreener/pseuds/thegrassisgreener
Summary: There comes a point in every person's life when they have to confront everything they are and everything they know and decide how to go on. What comes next. For John, he gets several of those, far too many for one man, but the one that changes his life the most comes when he and Sherlock stand in front of a white jet, and it has Sherlock's name on it.In an instant, John realizes that Sherlock was right about one thing in particular: He sees, but he doesn't observe.“So, what about you then?” John asks, and Sherlock stares at him curiously. “Where are you actually going now?”Sherlock hisses in a breath, “Oh, some undercover work in Eastern Europe.”“For how long?”“Six months,” Sherlock shrugs, “my brother estimates… He’s never wrong.”John feels a little unsteady on his feet suddenly. “And then what?”The taller man looks at him, and when he speaks, his voice is a little gruff, a little trembly, “Who knows.”
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 62





	If I Told You To Wait

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello, my beautiful readers! 
> 
> It's been a while, huh? Well, quite recently I've added Sherlock the BBC series onto my ever-growing list of fandoms, and of course, I have become obsessed with yet another ship. Who's surprised? Because it's definitely not me and it's definitely not you guys.
> 
> Anywho, whether you're a new reader or an old one of mine, I hope you like this ridiculous piece that I wrote in one 3-hour sitting when I should've been doing homework for my online classes. Though, it's not like me to not procrastinate on something. 
> 
> Enjoy, my lovelies! And happy holidays!
> 
> Oh, wait, one more thing. There's no Mary bashing in this because I actually really like Mary. I know, I know, a JohnLock shipper that is actually a fan of Mary? Christmas miracle. Mary is a badass bitch with a heart of gold and is a JohnLock shipper as well if you didn't notice. Like, c'mon. So, yes, I love her.

“So, what about you then?” John asks, and Sherlock stares at him curiously. “Where are you actually going now?”

Sherlock hisses in a breath, “Oh, some undercover work in Eastern Europe.”

“For how long?”

“Six months,” Sherlock shrugs, “my brother estimates… He’s never wrong.”

John feels a little unsteady on his feet suddenly. “And then what?”

The taller man looks at him, and when he speaks, his voice is a little gruff, a little trembly, “Who knows.”

The silence hangs heavy between them, and John has to look away so he doesn’t have to meet Sherlock’s now glassy eyes.

Sherlock takes the moment to stare at the back of John’s head, to watch his grey hair float a little in the light breeze. The air from his lungs seems to leave him, and the detective finds that he’s left with a hollow feeling growing inside him, a feeling he’s long hoped would fade with time. Yet, he knows in that moment, it’ll never really go away. 

“John, there’s,” he looks down, “something… I should say. I meant to say, always, and I never have.” The tremble in Sherlock's voice is more apparent now, and as John turns to meet his face, he sees the other man bite his lip lightly and look away. 

John is almost sure he’s about to make a joke, tell him something stupid to lighten the mood because even this day is too much for Sherlock Holmes himself. John’s face doesn’t falter, but he prepares for it. Prepares to feel a bit of weight lifted from him. He can always count on Sherlock to turn his day around. 

“Since it’s unlikely we’ll ever meet again, I might as well say it now,” Sherlock tells him. 

The wind swooshes by them and rustles their jackets and hair. It’s chilly, not too much so, and not unwelcome in it’s warning of an approaching evening. The plane they stand in front of isn’t very tall or big, but there’s something cold and frightening about it; something John can’t put his finger on. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mycroft and Mary chatting idly a ways away from them, allowing them a moment of privacy before an impending goodbye. He smiles as he notices Mary’s bump, hidden but still noticeable if you were looking for it. 

His attention is back on Sherlock as the other man takes a deep breath. 

“I’m devastatingly in love with you.”

In a moment, the world shatters, and between the pieces, is John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. They stand in an abyss, like a nearly faded memory, as John wills his brain to catch up with the information that he’s just been told.

“W-what?” His knees go wobbly. 

Sherlock huffs out his breath and tries to smile. “Please, don’t make me repeat myself.”

John blinks at him. “What?!”

“You’re angry,” he says, looking up. 

“No,” the army doctor retorts, now shaking. “I’m not angry. Confused, not angry- What did you say?”

“I, Sherlock Holmes, am, and have been for quite some time, head-over-heels in love with you, John H. Watson.” 

The formality of the sentence would have thrown John off, but he’d already been thrown for a bit so it didn’t have as much of an impact. 

***

When John had looked up from his dinner table several months prior and seen a man who he’d thought to be dead for the last two years, he very much felt like flipping over a table or maybe passing out. And this wasn’t just any presumably dead man, this was his best friend, partner in the opposite of crime, colleague, and flatmate, Sherlock Holmes. Someone he’d spent two years grieving for, returned to therapy for, and tried to avoid thinking about when beneath the sheets with his girlfriend. 

_ Girlfriend. _ Mary Morstan, soon to be Mary Watson, was sitting at the other end of the table, with gears visibly turning in her head as she watched her boyfriend have what looked to be a staring contest with a tall, curly-haired fellow in a tux and fake mustache. And, frankly, she thought this stranger’s fake mustache still looked a hell of a lot better than John’s, not that she'd tell him that… Not that he’d listen.

The night had ended with Sherlock getting a couple of bloody noses and Mary still ringless, but now mildly amused. 

“I like him,” she told John, and even though he didn’t want to admit it, John felt the same way. 

Dr. Watson’s life had always been bizarre. Twists and turns that he’d never seen coming coming up to him and giving him a good punch to the stomach. He’d always had a little feeling that he was one of those people that the universe couldn’t just let be, always giving him a new change in the routine. The feeling became assured when he’d met Sherlock and moved in with him on the same day. 

He felt simultaneously unlucky and like the luckiest man alive to live the life he led. John Watson could never really say he was bored. 

And after 2 years of grieving and pain and tears and visiting a cold gravestone, now that the person who caused all that was back in his life, John couldn’t help but feel like he had just been destined to live a convoluted life; a wonderful, horrendous, magnificently awful life. 

Yet, he had Sherlock back, and the only emotion John had felt at the end of that night was overwhelming happiness. Confused happiness, but happiness nonetheless. 

***

Now, as he stood in front of that same Sherlock that had caused that confused happiness, John realized that Sherlock was capable of doing that a lot to him. He always seemed to have another surprise up his sleeve, but few had even come close to knocking him off his feet like this one. 

John stumbled, looking at the hard pavement and thinking about how nice it’d be to get enveloped by it right about now. 

“I know this is really not a great time for this,” Sherlock huffed, his eyes going glassy again and now a little watery. “You’re happily married, and Mary is wonderful- I could never even compare- and you’re about to be a father- and-”

John looked at him again, his eyes swimming with fear and confusion. Sherlock visibly gulped, his mouth going dry, his knees feeling a little weak as well. 

“Look, John,” he said, cutting his previous thought short. “I’m not trying to change anything. I’m not attempting to get you to run away with me so we can live out some torrid love affair in the Caribbean or anything of the sort. You’re-” 

He paused, straightening up. “You’re happy. I would never want to change that. All I want, what I require at this moment, is for you to know of my feelings for you. If I never- If- No matter what happens to me, if I never see you again, I’d want you to know that I feel this way. I didn’t know I was even capable of being so smitten until I met you.”

Sherlock’s face was content but full of emotion, like an ocean of something that John had never thought he’d see in the other man, yet here he was standing with all of it out in the open. 

“You are my everything; you’re in everything I do. You’re the first thing my mind goes to when I wake up, and the last thing on it before I fall asleep. You’re in the way I walk and move and scream and sing. You’ve become the variable in the equation of my life that I never thought could affect the outcome so,” Sherlock rambles on and it’s music in John’s ears. “I digress, but all of this is to say that I love you more than you could possibly begin to know, and I thought you’d like to know.”

John blinks a few more times, and when he tries to speak, his throat closes up. It’s only then that he sees a single tear roll down Sherlock's cheek before he manages to wipe it away. 

The detective chuckles as he rubs his eyes. “Oh, I’m a bloody mess. Mercy, spare me.” 

With that, Sherlock holds out a hand. “To the very best of times, John.”

And John takes his hand, gives it a shake, and lets his touch linger for a moment as Sherlock’s grip slips out of his. He doesn’t think, can’t think, as the other man gives him one final smile before he’s climbing up the stairs of a jet, bidding his brother and Mary a final goodbye before the cabin door closes behind him, and with it, the final time that John thinks he’ll see Sherlock.

***

Except, it’s not the final time John will see him, because as Sherlock stares out the window longingly as he flies to who knows where, he gets a call that suddenly sends him back to the take-off platform. 

The next few days come and go in a blur. Moriarty, an old case from the 1800s, the birth of his daughter, broken busts of Margeret Thatcher. There was so much going on that John almost didn’t notice the less noticeable - almost. He noticed the glances that Sherlock would send his way, which would turn to flicks of the head as if John hadn’t noticed him staring. John noticed once when Sherlock grabbed his hand to stop him from running into traffic, their brains fuzzy from the fast-paced hours, and he noticed when Sherlock’s fingers held his wrist a little too long. John noticed when Sherlock looked away and started doing something whenever he saw John and Mary laughing or kissing or interacting romantically in any way. It was obvious, and it was even more obvious that Sherlock was trying so,  _ so  _ hard not to make it all noticeable. 

There’s a moment, a break in the noise, when everything is at its height and something changes, where there’s a subtle but loud shift in it all. That moment, that break, came when John and Mary were bone-tired and slugging around the house. The last several hours had been filled with a juggle of case-baby-case-baby, and neither of them had been quite prepared for it. They sat on the couch, Rosie in Mary’s arms and one of John’s arms around Mary’s shoulders. There was quiet for the first time in over a month. 

Mary sighed, deep and restless. “I’m tired.”

John chuckled, rubbing his thumb along his daughter’s cheek. “I know, love, I know.”

“When does it end?” Mary says, her head leaning back and resting on the back of the couch. “When will my past stop following me around? When will I be able to move on?”

John kisses her temple. “I don’t know, Mary. Hopefully soon.”

Silence, for just a few beats, before Mary gets up off the couch. She shushes Rosie along the way toward the nursery, and John hears her place her in the crib, but when Mary returns, her face is different. 

“John,” she says seriously, and he stands too. “There’s something I want to tell you now. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to run away from all of this; A.G.R.A, and everything that follows with it. So… I need to give you this information.”

It all sounds so familiar, and John wants to throw up. 

“You’re not gonna confess your undying love for me, are you?” He chuckles, trying to lighten the newly darkened mood. 

His wife looks confused. “What?”

John’s eyes widen a fraction and he clears his throat. “Nevermind, please go on, but you should know that nothing's gonna happen to you.”

She sighs, “John, anything could happen to any of us at any moment, and with the way things are going, I can’t afford to leave anything unsaid with you.”

John wants to stop her, pull her into his arms, and tell her that everything is going to be okay, but he knows that isn’t true. He’s spent the last several years learning that when you lead a life like his, anything can happen in a split second. So he stays quiet, not because it’s not painful to hear what she has to say, but because he knows he has to hear it anyway. 

“First of all, if I die, you need to be prepared to be a single father. You know everything Rosie needs, and if something happens to me, she has to be your first priority, understand?” 

John’s heart aches at the sentiment, but he nods anyway, “Of course.”

“Next,” Mary says, pulling out her phone, and showing John a folder on her it. “These are all the codes and passwords for everything you might need. My bank accounts, my confidential files, everything. Your fingerprint can unlock my phone, this folder is in the untitled note in my notepad app, and the password to that is your birthday, written in numbers.”

John lets himself smile a little at the last part. 

“Lastly,” she says, putting her phone away and meeting her husband’s eyes. “If I’m gone, I want you to know you can move on, and I want you to-”

“No,” John interrupts her, shaking his head. “I couldn’t do that. You know I couldn’t. You’re it for me, Mary.”

She tries to smile, but it doesn’t really work. “Things change, John, I just want you to know I’d be okay with it. I know you could be happy with him.”

“Him?” The doctor’s eyebrows scrunch together.

She tilts her head and smiles. “Sherlock, of course.”

John stumbles back, and suddenly it all feels very,  _ very _ familiar. 

“You heard him,” he says to himself, but it comes out aloud. 

“What?”

“You heard him,” John repeats, sitting back down on the couch and smacking a hand to his forehead. “I’m so stupid- of course, you heard him- Mary, I’m so sorry-”

“John.” She sits by him. “I never heard him say anything, but it does make sense that he told you, now that I think about it.” She smiles again, and it reaches her eyes this time. “I just figured it out though, that’s all.”

John stares wide-eyed at her, his mouth slightly open, and Mary chuckles as she pets his arm. “Darling, of course, I knew. With the way he looks at you? I’d be stupid not to know. I can spot a woman who’s interested in you from a mile away, you think I wouldn’t notice that your own best friend is hopelessly in love with you?”

He feels his stomach drop. “Mary, I’m so-”

“Don’t,” she stops him. “Don’t apologize, you’ve nothing to apologize for. I talked to him about it once, a long time ago, back when we’d first met. I told him I knew, and he started to apologize, like you were doing just now, and telling me nothing would ever happen between you two. I told him it’s okay, and that if I were him, I wouldn’t be able to help falling for you either. In fact, I didn’t.” 

They share a laugh at this, and Mary continues, “If you two were snogging behind my back, I might be a bit more upset, but I know you’re still coming to terms with how you feel for him. To help you along though, it’s quite obvious that you love him too.”

“Mary, I love you more, and I’d never-”

“I know,” she stops him again. “I just wanted you to know that I’m okay with it- if I’m ever gone.”

John tries not to, but he chuckles. “I’m glad you approve, I guess, but don’t talk like that. You’re not going to die.”

She gives him a small smile and an even smaller kiss to his lips. 

***

An east wind comes, hits them hard, and when they stand back up, they stand as two instead of three. John grieves, Sherlock gets high out of his mind, and together, they try to put back the pieces of what used to be… something. Something that isn’t quite happiness or sadness, but the life they used to live. It’s one blow after another, and even as John takes Rosie in his arms and moves back into 221B Baker Street, he can’t help but feel he’s missing some of the pieces that made that puzzle what used to be something.

Something he used to know. 

***

It all works, sort of. Sherlock turns out to be relatively okay with babies, especially after John dumps whatever is left of his syringes and pills in the dumpster outside. Not that Sherlock would use it again after John comes back, but with a child in the house, John can’t afford the risk. 

There’s one evening when John is sobbing in his chair with a pillow curled up in his lap at a time where he couldn’t stop reliving Mary dying every night in his dreams. Sherlock comes back from a late stroll he had taken Rosie on, and after bringing the baby upstairs to lay her in her cradle, he came back down to find John desperately trying to wipe away the signs of his sadness. 

Sherlock stops in the door frame, frozen in place until John meets his eyes. A veteran’s eyes that hold a silent plea and Sherlock has his arms around him in a second. He cradles the older man’s head with his hand and listens as John chokes out words through his sobs. 

“W-why did it have to-to be like this?” 

Sherlock pulls away and places a small kiss on John’s forehead, resting his lips there for a moment as he says, “The world is a cruel place sometimes.”

John shuts his eyes as Sherlock pulls away, and before he gets too far, John throws his arm around the other man’s neck and kisses him like tomorrow won’t come. And Sherlock lets him, let’s him kiss him breathless and explore his mouth with his tongue for some time before he breaks away abruptly by pulling John back by his shoulders. Sherlock looks flushed and well-kissed. 

“No,” he says, his voice breaking. 

John’s brows furrow. “No?”

Sherlock shakes his head and lets go of the other’s shoulders. “I’ve wanted you to do that for so long, but it’s not right, not now. You’re grieving, and you’re looking for temporary comfort. I’ll provide you that, platonically, but I won’t give you more than that until your head clears and you can tell me how you feel honestly.”

John finds himself nodding quickly without meaning to as Sherlock stands up and begins to walk over to his desk. The former grabs his hand, making the ladder turn. 

“You’re a good man, Sherlock,” John says quietly, looking up. 

Sherlock offers a small, crooked smile. “Only to you.” 

Then the real east wind comes, and everything Sherlock Holmes ever knew shifts and burns and rises from the ashes as something completely new. Sherlock finds love in a new place, and finds it in his long-padlocked heart to forgive the unforgivable. He and John stand outside the wreckage of the Holmes childhood home, watching Sherlock’s sister - a phrase that still left a strange taste on John’s tongue - get driven away as she gives them a wave through the window, a wave that Sherlock returns with an honest smile. And John smiles up at the other man, feeling like they’d just walked through fire and somehow made it out alive and well. 

***

There’s a tension in the air when the dust finally settles. Life goes back to something resembling normal. Sherlock and John go back to solving crimes, ones with less stakes than with Eurus, but still interesting nevertheless. 

There are some things that are different. There’s a baby in the house, Sherlock visits his sister once in a while, and the tension between John and Sherlock is so thick it could be cut with a knife. 

Most people notice it, very few attempting to comment on it. Lestrade tries, once, by saying, “Why are you two acting so weird?” after John and Sherlock had shared a look that lasted just a tad too long, which earns the inspector a look of his own from both men that shuts him right up. 

They’re right, of course, and John and Sherlock both know it, even though they try to ignore it. But there comes a day when John is tired of ignoring it. 

The veteran comes home, four grocery bags balanced precariously in his arms as he makes his way into the living. Sherlock gets up immediately, grabbing two of them and beginning to unpack. It’s something that John isn’t quite used to yet, Sherlock actually being nice subconsciously, which has been a slow gradual change over the years and then a complete paradigm shift after the Eurus situation. 

John chuckles to himself, beginning to unpack his own two bags on the table next to his flatmate. Flatmate, best friend, cru- he realizes he’s not really sure what to call Sherlock, but he’d be damned if he was going to leave it a mystery. 

They’d never been people to leave things a mystery. 

Their shoulders bump as they near the bottoms of their bags, and Sherlock starts to say something only for John to cut him off. 

“What are we?” He says, shocking even himself a little at the forwardness of the question. Sherlock’s eyebrows shoot up, and his dazzling blue eyes catch the light as his upper eyelids rise. 

His eyes flicker to Rosie, who’s playing on a little play-mat on the floor in front of his chair. She giggles lightly as she shakes her rattle, completely unaware and unfazed by the tense mood. 

“What do you mean?” Sherlock poses another question instead of answering John’s, even though he knows exactly what he means. 

“You like me,” says John, still confidently blunt with his words. “In fact, you told me you love me. Yet you haven’t done anything about it.”

Sherlock tries to chuckle. It doesn’t work. “I- What am I to do?”

“Just- just something, Sherlock!” John throws his arms up, knowing neither of them are really giving the other any real answers. 

Sherlock sighs, looking up at the ceiling then back at John. “Well, why don’t we start somewhere? How do you feel about me?”

The shorter man looks at him, not really knowing how to answer. Sherlock sighs louder, “How do you feel? I laid out everything I feel in front of you, and you never gave me an answer. For all I know, you could still be going by straight.”

John blinks at him. “Sherlock.”

“Yes?” There’s no malice in the detective’s voice, but a shyness creeps at it. 

“How could you possibly bloody think I don’t feel the same way?”

It’s Sherlock’s turn to stumble this time. “What?”

“I- I like you.” He laughs at himself. “God, I feel like a teenager-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The taller man looks hurt, but not angry. 

John places his hand over Sherlock’s. “I didn’t know how to.  _ I _ didn’t even know for a while. I think… I think I’ve always felt the same way, but I didn’t realize it until Mary said something, and then I realized everybody else knew what I didn’t.”

Sherlock’s breath hitches, and it borders between a laugh and a gasp. “Mary?”

John chuckles. “Yeah, umm, the night she- she died. We were in the house before you texted us and she gave me some instructions for - you know - if she was gone. One of the things she told me is that she’d- uh, that she approves of us getting together if she were to die.”

Sherlock is stunned into silence. John laughs at the face he makes and continues, “Yeah, I know, I didn’t quite believe it either when she told me. She said she’d always noticed what was between us and that we just hadn’t figured it out, even if we were both feeling it.”

Sherlock blinks a few times. “She said the same thing to me.”

John gives him a look. “What?”

“She said that she knew how I felt about you, and if something were to happen to her, that she wanted me to- um, I’m quoting this- ‘take care of you’. I tried to tell her something against it but she could see right through me,” Sherlock explains. “She was always great at that.”

John laughs because  _ of course  _ Mary would do something like that. Even in death, she’s looking out for her family. 

“Well, do you still?” John asks when the air is silent again. 

Sherlock tilts his head. “Still?”

“Love me?”

“I-” Sherlock chokes on his words. “I couldn’t stop if I tried.”

John smiles and leans a little closer. “Have you tried?”

“Not for a moment,” Sherlock whispers and swoops down to collect John in his arms and kiss the breath out of him. 

John wraps his arms around Sherlock’s neck as their tongues intertwine, and the doctor can’t help but feel like he’s finally home.

***

When Autumn comes and the days grow shorter, when the layers they put on to go out slowly grow more and more, and when coffee isn’t just a wake-up but a warm welcome to the day, John and Sherlock finally feel like there are no more missing pieces, and the ones they have slide right back into place. 

Still, the life they lead is never quite as domestic as any normal couple's would be, but neither of them would ever really want that. 

They spend one of the last days of November running along the rooftops of apartment buildings after a serial killer, and near the end of the block, Sherlock jumps and barrel rolls over a particularly large gap and John can only watch as Sherlock gets to his feet and tackles the murderer. John gives a whoop of excitement when Sherlock has his knee against the guy and his arms held behind his back, and he runs down the fire escape to direct the police to the right area. 

Sherlock watches the criminal get shoved into the back of a police car, not even a fluttering of a smile on his face, and John comes over to bump his shoulder. 

“Hey,” he says, and Sherlock meets his eyes. “You alright?”

Sherlock nods, but his voice is a little gruff when he speaks. “Yeah.”

He takes John’s hand in his own and they flag down a taxi. Once they’re in and give the driver directions to 221B Baker Street, John looks over to find his boyfriend staring at him. 

“Sherlock?”

Without hesitation, Sherlock leans down, places a strong kiss on John’s lips, and when he pulls away he holds John’s face in one hand. He smiles. 

“What was that about?” John asks, finding himself grinning too as Sherlock’s other hand twines with John’s. 

The consulting detective shrugs, “Sometimes, when we’re chasing criminals like that, it feels oddly not as good as it used to, and I just realized why.”

John gives him a kiss to the temple. “Why’s that?”

“Because now solving a case isn’t the most brilliant feeling in the world anymore. Being with you is. And luckily for me, I see a lot of both,” Sherlock tells him, and John swears he’s never heard anything more romantic in his life. 

“I love you so bloody much,” John whispers, kissing him hard. 

Sherlock smiles into the kiss. “And I, you.”

end.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed that little piece, and I kid you not, I wrote that entire thing in 3 hours and then edited it the next day. I'm still quite proud of that. 
> 
> I'm hoping to post more now that I'm feeling rejuvenated in my writing flow, so quite possibly expect some more stuff soon? Who knows? But I do hope you'll stick around for more. You never know what other fandoms I might dig up from the ashes, become obsessed with, and then go on to share my fanfiction of said fandom with all of you. 
> 
> I hope you have a great holiday season, no matter what you're celebrating. Christmas, Hannukah, or whatever it may be. Or maybe you're not celebrating at all, in which case I hope you enjoy some hot beverages and good winter scents. :)
> 
> Much love,   
> Grass


End file.
